Take a First Look at The Listening To Learn Math Interviews and Join The Conversation! [VIDEO]

Listening to Learn is an exciting new K–5 digital interview tool by highly respected educators Marilyn Burns and Lynne Zolli. Just released from Heinemann this April, Listening to Learn math interviews are one-one-one assessments that help teachers learn how their students reason numerically — the essential information they need to plan instruction. 

In this blog, we’re going to keep up with Marilyn’s Listening to Learn Twitter chat, so you can learn more about math interviews and share what you learn with your friends and colleagues.

Whether you've been following along with the Twitter chat from the beginning or are just seeing these video clips for the first time, we invite you to watch the clips below and share your thinking either in the blog comments or on Twitter using #ListeningToLearn. Be sure to follow @mburnsmath to see the new video every Wednesday evening. 

We suggest you start with this brief overview video to get an initial sense of the importance and usefulness of Listening to Learn.

The first video clip Marilyn shared was an interview conducted by coauthor Lynne Zolli. This is Listening to Learn: Interview 2, Addition and Subtraction within 10.  

Interviews often surprise me. First she gives a wrong answer, then rethinks & changes 36 + 9 to 39 + 6 to get the right answer. Is the switcharoo OK? Would it work for subtraction? Multiplication? https://t.co/zbl4eRIwET pic.twitter.com/HpCmnB3JgE

— Marilyn Burns (@mburnsmath) April 7, 2021

The following week Marilyn shared this video, where she interviews a student using Listening to Learn: Interview 4, Addition and Subtraction Within 100 

In this clip, we get a sense of Listening to Learn: Interview 1, Foundations of Numerical Reasoning from watching @amycmayfield present a problem to a Kindergarten student.

Marilyn then posted a video of Rusty Bresser presenting a student with the first question from Listening to Learn: Interview 6, Foundations of Multiplication.

Next, Marilyn shared a video featuring a word problem from Listening to Learn: Interview 10, Fractions & Decimals. 

This time, Marilyn shared a pair of videos showing two students, one interviewed by Marilyn and the other by Lynne, answer the same question from Listening to Learn: Interview 8, Extending Multiplication & Division. 

The next video highlights that partial understanding and confusion are part of learning in Listening to Learn; Interview 9, Foundations of Fractions.

As is evident in this video, memorization is not enough alone. As you can see, her first instinct is to lean on what she's memorized, but when she comes up short, it's her ability to reason that gets her over the finish line. 

Marilyn Burns is one of today’s most highly respected mathematics educators. Over the course of more than fifty-five years, Marilyn has taught children, led in-service sessions, spoken at conferences, contributed to professional journals, and written more than thirty books and resources for children and educators.

Lynne Zolli was a classroom teacher in the San Francisco Unified School District for over forty years and taught grades 1 through 6. She also was a mentor teacher, professional development leader, Math Solutions instructor, and conference speaker. Lynne is a grant writer, an author of Math Solutions professional books, and a co-author of Do the Math.